Last night our largest update since the Sanctum patch went live, bringing with it some pretty major changes and improvements. The v1.50 update notes:

The width of the game window has been expanded by one tile on each side, making the new view width 19x15 tiles.

Most menus in the game have been slightly repositioned or in some cases redesigned to accommodate the new game window width.

The Battle HUD has been completely redesigned, and now allows players to map abilities and items to hotkeys (1 through 0).

Graphical indicators for most status effects on both foes and party members are now displayed during the strategy round in battle.

The HUD Icons for most abilities and many items have been changed. The number of unique HUD Icons has been more than tripled.

The Quest Log now has an auto-sort button.

Bug Fix: The tip of the mouse pointer wasn't centered correctly.

Bug Fix: In certain circumstances players could walk upwards into the upper sections of large castle doorways.

Bug Fix: The +Phys stat was also applying its bonus to magical attacks.

Bug Fix: It was sometimes possible to open menus and trigger abilities right as a party started the sleep sequence at Inns.

I did the mockups, but Spiff is responsible for most of the implementation of the new menus, etc. Last night players were showering praises on the new hotkey system, and if you see Spiff in the game he's the man to thank :)

The next small patch will likely be adding hotkeys for monster/party selection in battle, allowing players to control the entire battle with their keyboards once they have their hotkeys set. We're also still working on a true "Gamepad Mode" for release later this summer.

v1.50 is a major step forward towards completing this summer's planned updates, and has laid the groundwork for the next round of major changes. Next up is the new skill tree system, followed closely thereafter by the monster companion system. The goal is to make all of these updates happen sooner rather than later this summer so that we can finally get on with promoting the game and cranking out the long-awaited new content. Stay tuned!

I like the 3 person parties. though 4 person parties would make playing with friends a ton of fun, it would make a lot of wild encounters way too easy and would make pvp really complicated. Hurry up with those updates: summer's over soon! (4 weeks for me at least)

Would the monster companions fight with you like other players? If so, that'd make it so much easier to solo (which I like).

Yes, while solo you can have up to two monster companions in battle which can fight. They won't be controlled directly, but will have an AI in place to select commands. This is basically the trade-off for not partying with real players.

When you're in a party with other players, your monster companions can bestow passive stat boosts or give you access to additional spells/skills above your normal ability set.